


Percentages

by GoldenSnowflake



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Basically a lot of people hooking up, Dubious Consent, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Flashbacks, I'm shipping Phone Guy with everything that moves Jesus Christ, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Post-Five Nights at Freddy's 1, Potential Theory-Based Spoilers, Psychological Trauma, Spooky Scaries, Unreliable Narrator, Various Theories, Withdrawal, macaroni and cheese
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:26:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3274961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenSnowflake/pseuds/GoldenSnowflake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your dreams always were the weirdest early in the morning. (A collection of oneshots.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hell

It’s hell when the antidepressants run out.

Day one is all right. You go to the gas station and grab a few things you’re out of, even pausing to smile at the cashier. Climbing the hill back to the apartment only produces the slightest wobble in your head.

Day two is worse: the vertigo is setting in, limiting you to your bed and the couch. It’s happening far faster than you’d anticipated. At 6 PM you realize you haven’t eaten anything. A bag of cookies makes things much better.

By day three, there’s hysteria, a flood of relief that you’re going to be just fine edged with despair as you stand up to go to the bathroom and hit your head against the wall. You find your cell phone and call your sister, although you dream that you did and don’t actually dial the first letter of her name into your contacts list until the next morning. She sounds busy, uninterested, and you realize you’re crying. She says she’ll try to get you some medication as soon as she can.

On day five, your head is pounding, your ears ringing so loud it sounds like the hum of a refrigerator. You try to lie down and dream of someone knocking at the door. At two in the morning you get up and get a glass of water. Your head feels fuzzy, but the rest of you feels better.

On day six you open the door to find a pile of newspapers and junk mail. You sit down with it all at the table and try your sister again. There’s no answer.

There’s a blocky page of advertisements halfway through the paper, a lot of used cars and some free poodle puppies. There’s also a job opening; something about a restaurant offering weekly pay. You down a glass of barely-expired orange juice and try to convince yourself that it’s a message. Your finger gets cut pretty badly, but you manage to snip the ad out, letting it flutter to the floor as you stumble to sit in the shower for an hour before going to bed.

You don’t know what you’re going to do.

It’s 4 AM when you wake up - or you think so, until you realize you’re slick with putrid sweat and the sun is burning through the blinds. There’s a voicemail from your uncle, saying they miss you and he knows things have been tough but that you’re a Schmidt, and Schmidt men are never defeated by their heads. It doesn’t sound like he knows you got fired from the construction company, although maybe he does, since he seems to be bashing you again for needing medication to feel normal. You realize how stupid you were for believing your boss when she said you’d be a manager by September.

You’re startled to find that the microwave mac and cheeses you bought at the gas station are sitting on the table, right where you left them a day (a week?) ago. You make three and finish one before you start to feel ill. The room starts spinning and your ears are screaming, and you do the math and decide lying down is worth more than putting the rest of the macaroni in the fridge for later.

It’s day eight, and you’re sobbing uncontrollably when you wake up, so hard that there’s saliva dribbling down your chin and your voice is gone. You dreamt that your mother came to visit and that she saw you for the first time like you really are, almost thirty and damaged beyond repair from your fiancée leaving and jobless and scared and tired.

You think somebody was coming to visit yesterday, but they didn’t. Then you remember that somebody maybe knocked a few days ago.

After sitting upright on the floor for a while, trying to figure out whether the room is shaking or your head is just funny, you think you probably dreamt that there was knocking just before waking up. Your dreams always were the weirdest early in the morning.

Thoughts are all spinning and skipping off every sound. It takes effort, but you grasp onto the idea that things were once better and that they’re still getting worse.

You’re picking at the dried macaroni with a fork when you notice the newspaper clipping on the floor. $120 for a week of work.

Enough for rent.

Enough for your medication.

You dial the number with shaking fingers and stare at the scrap of paper as it rings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> o3o Headcanon where Mike is going through withdrawal because he lost his old job and thus his health insurance.


	2. Bruises

Mike Schmidt took the paper route despite the funny look he got from the teenage boy who trained him. At the ripe-old age of twenty seven, he had reached the glorious part of his life during which he didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought of him. Stocking at the grocery store meant being cooped up all day in a tiny building with low ceilings for four days out of the week, and driving a delivery truck to and from a local warehouse meant sitting on his butt until it went numb for the rest of them. Mike wanted to walk, and he wanted open air. He wanted them, so he got them.

It was two weeks into the paper route when it happened. A brisk, overcast day, spattering tiny droplets of water into his face as he plodded down Main Street. He had just chucked one of the paper-filled baggies onto an old lady’s porch, gawking when the cat he hadn’t meant to hit screeched and zoomed into the bushes, when a voice rang out that made his heart leap into his throat.

“Hey! Uh, hello! What can I do for ya?”

Mike’s head swung around, his eyes going wide. The door of a small house down the street was open, an elderly woman on the doorstep. “My granddaughter is selling magazines,” she explained, extending a hand holding a pamphlet. The man in the house nodded.

“All right, then. I’ll look these over!”

The woman thanked him and left, leaving the man standing in his doorway, flipping through the pamphlet. He suddenly looked up, eyes locking with Mike’s, and everything came to a screeching halt.

Blue; iridescent blue. Slim and small with deep lines carved beneath his eyes and at the edges of his mouth.

 _It was him_.

Catching himself, Mike closed his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut.

He had to be imagining things.

That voice - he had _died_.

_The screaming, the crashing, the tune echoing through the halls as the power kicked off-_

Mike opened his eyes once more to find the door shut. Leaves rustled; a car honked as it careened through a stop sign.

He _couldn’_ t be alive.

Running a hand over his face, Mike Schmidt collected his nerves. It could wait.

It had to.

He grabbed another newspaper out of his bag and moved on.

\---

Mike Schmidt drove a minimum of twenty miles over the speed limit for the entirety of his shift, getting stunned looks from the crew at one of the home improvement stores when he arrived with their delivery an hour early.

When he got home, he took a brisk shower, ate a TV dinner, and sat down to think.

The snippet of conversation he’d heard played over and over in his head, painfully clear.

_Hey! Uh, hello! What can I do for ya?_

He had encountered several people in his life who had sounded nearly identical in pronunciation, word choice, and pitch. But the voice of the man as he greeted the old woman on his doorstep…

It wasn’t a coincidence.

The idea that the man who had recorded messages for him, who had kept him calm and urged him onward through what was undoubtedly the most deadly experience of his life _was alive_ was completely and utterly incomprehensible. Schmidt sighed heavily and scrubbed his hands over his face.

He knew nothing - no phone number, no name.

Only an address.

As he walked down the street in the inky, spreading twilight, the terror he’d felt every night at the pizzeria licked at the back of his mind once more.

\---

The house seemed shabbier in the creeping darkness. He stepped up to the door and stared, unseeing, at the brassy plate engraved with the house number. The bushes out front were small and thistly and light seeped out through the venetian blinds.

Mike knocked and waited.

“Yes?” came a muffled voice that had Mike breaking out in goosebumps. “Who is it?”

The door was opened by a pale, gaunt man with brownish hair that hung over his wide eyes. The creases at the edges of his lips and between his brows put him in his late thirties. Mike knew his jaw had dropped, and when not a single word came out, the guy in the house gave a crooked smile that was startlingly attractive and said, “Hello! What can I do for ya?”

“I’m-” He swallowed and tried again. “I worked at the - at Freddy Fazbear’s. Night shift. You left messages for me.”

A flicker of something - either horror or realization - passed through his eyes, and the Phone Guy opened the door a little further. “Oh! What a great surprise! You’re the one that made it through the whole _week_ , aren’tcha? I mean - ahem. Y-you know what I mean.”

Fighting his stomach’s writhing urge to empty itself on his feet, Mike laughed almost hysterically and nodded. “I don’t -- anymore. I stock shelves and drive truck now.”

The man from the messages grinned again and threw out his arms. “Hey, that’s good to hear. Freddy’s is kind of an … entry-level job … I’m glad ya moved on to bigger and better things. Would you like to come in?”

Everything in him was screaming at Mike to turn around and walk straight home, to get as far away as possible from the individual whose life was forever unraveled like his own. To escape the chance that those long nights weren’t the nightmarish imaginings he could almost believe they were now.

The desperation to know was stronger.

“Uh, sure,” he replied, and Phone Guy shut the door behind him, ushering him into a cluttered living room occupied by a few chairs and half a dozen dim lamps. He sat down across from the couch that still had a divot from the last time its owner had used it, working his hands together furiously until his knuckles went white. There were papers scattered everywhere - forms, newspapers, some covered in blocks of tiny font that looked like pieces of a novel. The smaller man took a seat across from him, picking up an open beer that had left a ring of condensation on the papers beneath it.

“So.” He crossed his long legs, fixing Mike in his brilliant, penetrating stare. “What brings you here? I never really got to meet any of my coworkers. The management _really_ stretched their hours thin.”

Mike swallowed thickly and pushed down another swell of panic that tried to rise in his gut. “I, uh, thought I recognized you a couple days ago from the - job. I did my interview over the phone. The other guy was already gone by the time I got there at night.” His eyes darted to the floor, seeking relief from the other’s gaze. “I never saw anybody. I never talked to anybody. My check was in the mail when I got home Saturday morning.”

“Teamwork is a large part of any business,” Phone Guy murmured thoughtfully, as if this had never occurred to him before this moment. “Not having other … humans … to interact with, it’s hard.” He paused for a moment, and when Mike looked up at him, his face matching to his words gave his visitor a sudden feeling of vertigo. “I really am glad you stopped by. It’s good to connect with people who share the same experience.”

Nodding numbly, Mike made himself breathe.

He hadn’t known what to expect, but he certainly hadn’t expected to react like this.

That voice. Clear and crisp and strangely, shallowly throaty, unhindered by static and the buzz of a tiny fan and the tight strain of mortal terror.

Seeing lips forming the sounds that he’d clung to, that had kept him alive night after night after the janitors had left and the sun had begun to sink and he’d remembered all over again that whether or not he was insane, this was _real_ , real enough to fucking end his life - it made a cold sweat sweep over his skin all over again and made his heart squirm and flutter rapidly in his throat.

Mike swallowed hard and looked at the grungy rug between them. Phone Guy sighed softly and took another swig of his beer.

“Oh. Sorry. I-I didn’t even think to offer ya one.” The six-pack sat on the table between them, half-drained. “Do you-?”

He lifted up a bottle and sloshed it around a little with his pale, slender fingers, and Mike gladly accepted it.

They spoke between sharp, awkward silences, Mike asking the questions that he managed to force past his lips and the man responding with vague, sheepish answers as he shrugged his shoulders and crossed and uncrossed his legs. How long did you work? How many others didn’t make it as long as us? When was the pizzeria established and by who? _How did you get away?_

The man gave a twitch that was almost a smile, shrugging his narrow shoulders. “I got lucky. Once you’re around them enough, you begin to see opportunities you might not have before.”

Staring down at the circle of liquid lining the bottom of his bottle, Mike clenched and unclenched his jaw. “I thought you were dead.”

“Hey, surprise, surprise.” Phone Guy grinned, flashing white teeth. Mike stared at him, tired, dazed, and astounded beyond words at how the man could make such a meaningless reply seem good enough. Blindingly blue eyes held his, too calm and too anxious, and Mike Schmidt reached for another beer.

He didn’t speak again until he drank half the bottle, then huffed out a breath, running a hand through his short hair to quell the creeping goosebumps prickling up and down his spine.

“Those last two nights were pretty rough - if you couldn’t make it, how the fuck was I supposed to?”

When he turned his gaze back to the slim figure across from him, the man from the answering machine blinked owlishly. “It goes to show you: you can accomplish a lot more than you think when you just stay calm and do what ya know.”

He realized then that the man’s eyes were as much a part of it as his voice. They were half-present and half-filled with a blackness that was brilliantly close to the brink of insanity. Those eyes weren’t in a cluttered house upon an unexpected guest. They were in the dark, aided only by the dull flicker of fluorescent lights that would only stay on when you held down the button.

The man must have seen how Mike was looking at him, because his expression changed, pinching fleetingly before morphing into something more pensive, more open. “You’ll have to excuse me - I-I’m not used to visitors.”

“It’s okay,” Mike uttered softly.

“Is there anything else I can get you? I have-”

“No.”

Phone Guy’s mouth closed. He looked over Mike’s tired face thoughtfully.

“There’s a possibility I’m misinterpreting something here…”

“You aren’t.”

The man was still for a moment before setting his unfinished beer on the coffee table. Mike chose to finish his own, gulping it down and setting it beside the other empty bottle on the floor. He stood up and wondered idly how the room could be spinning lazily when he could typically handle twice as much alcohol before feeling any effects.

The gaunt figure rose from his place on the couch, slowly smoothing the creases from his shirt with both hands. The look on his face was somewhere in the gap between resigned and antsy with anticipation - like everything else, Mike couldn’t read him at all.

He took a step forward, coming to stand at least three inches taller than the man whose words had kept him alive in a tomb that reeked of blood and bleach. He had no idea what he was thinking. He also knew that he had never needed anything like he needed this.

He captured the man’s face between his hands and crushed their mouths together, and when they bumped into an end table and ended up against the wall, a small sound came from the smaller figure’s throat and his hands came to fist in Mike’s shirt. He tasted unimaginably good, and when Mike split the man’s bottom lip between his teeth, he realized that nothing would make him feel alive like blood would ever, ever again. The Phone Guy only moaned softly, tugging him toward a tiny, cluttered bedroom, and when he’d ripped the man’s clothes off and buried himself between his legs, his high, breathy cries made the echoes of terror and insanity rattling in Mike’s head go quiet, if only for a few hours.

They lay in silence, the man gazing up at the ceiling and Mike’s eyes wandering across the stacks of newspapers and books that littered a desk pushed against the far wall. He had been dozing when the man let out a long sigh, drawing him back to the present. He rolled over and looked Phone Guy up and down, still amazed that he was alive. Stretching, his limbs twitching as he balled his slim fingers into fists, the man turned his head to meet Mike’s stare. There was a squished cigarette in an ashtray he hadn’t noticed before, a thing that was a strikingly hideous shade of purple. “Can I ask you a question?”

After barraging the man with a myriad of questions and receiving virtually nothing in the way of answers, Mike was almost annoyed that he had the gall to ask. He was sleepy though, and for once he didn’t ache all over.

“I suppose so.”

“Do ya ever hear … voices? Anything strange that would remind you of your old job?”

He found himself thinking hard about it, trying to remember. Everything was a blur, marked by crisp, horrifyingly vivid swatches of clarity.

“No. I have nightmares, but things when I’m awake … they’re quiet.”

“Hmmm. That’s pretty remarkable.” His brows lifted and the man gave a genuine smile. “You seem like you were quite the professional.”

Mike snorted. “I think anybody would become a professional when fucking monsters want to stuff you into a suit that will slowly bleed you to death.”

At this, Phone Guy rolled over to face him, and Mike’s eyes were again drawn to that narrow waist, mottled with still-darkening bruises in the shapes of his fingertips. “Oh, don’t be so harsh. They’re really not all that bad…”

“How can you say that? They almost killed me. They almost killed _you_. And for every almost, God knows how many successes there were.”

“Well … yes, but does that really negate all the happiness they brought to so many more?”

Mike blinked. “Absolutely.”

“Awww, come on.” The slim man gazed at him lazily, propping himself up on an elbow. “Those characters have made so many children’s special days unforgettable. Yes, they’re a little bit glitchy at times, but so many people have a common bond - they loved Freddy and his friends as kids. How many people wanted to _be_ Freddy or Foxy or Chica when they grew up? How many would’ve given anything to see through those eyes?”

Mike’s mouth opened and closed and he felt his heart stutter. “Are-” His voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. “Are you saying you-”

“Would I like to be one of the characters? _Absolutely_. To be immortal in the hearts and minds of children … I can’t think of anything more special.” He sighed forlornly, rolling back to gaze toward the ceiling as Mike glanced around the room and tried to calculate how quickly he could get to the front door. Heartbeat leaping to scream through his ears, he made himself sit up slowly and stretch.  “But the kids come first … that little boy fit inside the Foxy suit far better than I would’ve anyway.”

Mike felt his throat go dry. He stared at the floor and tried to remember how to speak.

“I think I should go.”

“You don’t have to,” came the uncanny voice from behind him, soft and childlike. “I don’t mind sharing the bed. I-I _do_ have a problem with talking in my sleep, though.”

“No.” He was pulling his pants on. When he found his shirt, he stared at a stray thread where one of the buttons used to be, hands shaking. “It’s late. I should be getting home.”

When Phone Guy was silent behind him, Mike moved faster, grabbing his jacket out of the doorway and shoving his feet into his shoes. He kicked over an empty beer bottle on the way through the living room, considered righting it, then moved faster. The man’s eyes bore into his back.

“Don’t be a stranger,” said Phone Guy cheerily as Mike’s fingers reached the doorknob.

“I won’t.”

Mike Schmidt stepped outside, closing the door carefully behind him, and ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike, you skank.


	3. Interference

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE WAUGH
> 
> I tried to format this like prose, although it honestly came out more like a script...
> 
> This is basically me trying to reassure myself that Phone Guy isn't the purple guy from the FNAF2 minigames because I want to touch Phone Guy's butt really bad
> 
> ;n;

“Uhhh - hello! Hello, hello! Hey, you’re doing great!

“I wanted to tell you about some of the _changes_ you may see tonight … uhhh … I’ve got a friend here who’s sitting with me through my shift, so you’ll have to bear with me if things seem a bit different - on my end.

“Now, up to this point … Freddy _himself_ probably hasn’t given you that much trouble … uhhh … _Vince - what are you -_ ahem. I - oh, right, Freddy.

“Freddy has probably been fairly quiet until now, but don’t think that won’t change … the closer it gets to the end of the week - _ngh. What are you_ \- t-the closer to the end - of the week you get - it’s - you’ll have to forg-give me if … nnnh … my co-worker is - being- _stop stopstopstop I’m trying to - ahhh - p-please st- mmmngh -stop.”_

_Crackling and fumbling ensues as the recorder is bumped in a failed attempt to hit the STOP button._

“V-Vince - Jesus Christ - I’m recording _ffffuck_ \- I’m - f-for the new - the new night shift - guard - _ahhh. Mmmmshit … st- please, stop … fuck…”_

_Undefined sound; the shuffling of fabric._

“What’s wrong? Heh. Don’t want the new guy to hear how you get ready for your shift?”

“Vincent - God, you can’t just … I’m trying to help the kid, you can’t, no, _stop_ -”

_Thumping followed by a distinct scraping. A flutter like papers hitting the floor._

“Mmmgh…”

“Stopstop don’t please st _ahhhh_ … ngh. F-fuck … _fuck_ …”

_The sound of chair legs scraping the floor ensues. The hum of the fan is briefly picked up, replaced by a low humming and faint, breathy gasps._

Eyes as wide as saucers, Mike reached for the answering machine and hit the END button.


	4. Strings

“ _I never liked that puppet thing … it was always … thinking…_ ”

He takes on the nightshift in a flurry of paperwork and phone calls while rushing through a conversation with the boss about some orders that need to be made and doesn’t realize what he’s done until later. He picks up the phone; he’s beginning to feel ill.

It rings eight times before he’s answered. “Mmnh. Hello?”

“H-hey! Uh, hello, hello,” he laughs, scrubbing the sweat from his forehead. The last waitress’s tail lights flicker and she pulls out of the parking lot. “Hey, um, about Sheryl…”

“Sheryl’s got bronchitis.” There’s a rustle of static and the man coughs loudly. “Can’t come in.”

“Ah, well then - would you be willing to give me a list of employee phone numbers? I’m trying to find someone to cover this shift…”

The man cleared his throat. “Ya said you’d do it.”

A cold lump was forming in the pit of his stomach. “Turns out I can’t.”

The silence that followed felt like it was crawling up the walls.

“Well.” The Boss snorts. His voice is flippant. “If that place isn’t covered until six, it’s on you.”

 _Click_.

His mouth hangs open, the greasy phone still pressed to his ear. A wave of prickly-hot sweat explodes down his neck and he hangs it up.

He can’t lose this job. He _can’t_.

A glass of water might stop the spinning at the edges of his vision, but it’s 11:58 and he doesn’t trust himself to get back before the timer powering the never-ending loop of carnival music kicks off. “It’s just six hours,” he says to the empty room. His voice rings down the gaping hallway in a tinny echo. “I sleep _more_ than that every night, and it goes by in a blink!”

The floor lurches upward and he falls back into the chair.

11:59.

Wasn’t there an article in the paper about a young woman who went to the hospital for a mental breakdown and then was discovered to have bronchitis too? He can’t remember.

He should run.

There _has_ to be something else open, a cashier position, a gas station needing an attendant, _hell_ , even if he has to do something illegal…

$380, including utilities.

It’s due in three days.

He looks down at his watch, and it takes a strange, disjointed moment to register the readout at 12:00.

He raises his head to listen and hears nothing over the shrill, painful thudding of his heart in his throat. The dim lamp suspended from the ceiling flickers once and his stomach drops through the floor.

 _Cameras_.

Clammy fingers squeaking on the screen, he pulls the small television set closer. It takes four tries to push the POWER button all the way in. He scrubs his shaking hands on his pants as the feed cycles between rooms. New Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy are all in place on stage, staring into the empty space before them. A burst of shrill static fills the speakers as the screen flashes to the corner where a heap of exposed pistons and ball-joints glint in the dim light. The Mangle looks too torn apart to hold itself together. “L-let alone move,” he says to the room. His nervous chuckle is more like a sob.

The feed flashes to the prize corner; the drawings taped to the wall flutter although there’s nowhere for a breeze to be coming from. The tune so ingrained into his head that he hardly hears it anymore tinkles cheerily. With a startled yelp, he fumbles through the clutter on the desk, locating the futuristic-looking remote the engineers rigged up. The button clicks down stubbornly when he uses both thumbs to press it, and the music box stutters as it begins to wind. He’s shaking, but the obscene ringing in his ears is beginning to subside. The screen cuts to parts and service, and the gaping maw of old-Bonnie stares through the camera.

Okay so far.

Room after room of plastic tablecloth and party hats flickers into view. Flashes of dim camera light belie nothing out of the ordinary. The buzz of the little fan on the desk is beginning to feel like a drill burrowing into his skull.

 _Don’t look at your watch_ , he tells himself, and looks at it anyway.

It’s still 12:00.

A small part of him still grasps tightly to the hope that this is all a nightmare; that Tommy or Rita is on the way and everyone’s sorry about the confusion, man, _go home and get some rest; you’ve been here since eight this morning and_ that’s _gotta suck_. Then there’s a thump in the hallway, and that part of him is obliterated. When he can’t find the flashlight, nausea leaps up his throat, and when he remembers it’s been shoved in his back pocket and hurting his ass all day, a tear leaks unbidden from his eye. It doesn’t work until he bangs the back end against his palm, but then he flashes it on to find old-Bonnie at the end of the hallway. With a hoarse squeak he flashes the light, feeling his insides go thick and knotted. There’s a distant clang and a thud, and the next time the light blinks the hulking silhouette is gone.

He lets out a breath and sticks the flashlight between his legs before turning back to the monitor.

New Freddy and Bonnie are in place, but the gaudy new Chica is gone ( _bitch_.) The feed cuts to the center of the room, where the balloon-holding animatronic is smiling directly at the camera. He flicks his light down the hall and finds it empty. The TV shows the filthy wall covered in painted paper plates and the crooked silhouette of the Mangle.

With a shriek of static the screen goes black.

 _No_.

“No,” he breathes, eyes glued to the glass in search of something that isn’t there. “No no no no _no_.”

He’s banging on the dusty television when the tiniest shuffle of metal on metal sounds outside the door.

Willing his hands to stop shaking enough to grip the flashlight between them, he swallows thickly and turns it on. The stained and patchy figure makes his heart wrench painfully.

“Oh, Foxy,” he whispers, shivering in his seat. The reek of motor oil and something rotting drifts into the room, and his gaze is pulled to the hideous gashes in the robot’s hull as its eyes illuminate and vanish in the strobe of his light. When he glances down to jiggle the ON/OFF switch of the television, there’s a scraping sound that disappears into the dark, and he’s absurdly sad to hear Foxy go.

The TV flickers on, releasing fuzzy static where his fingers touch the screen. He removes his hand to see Toy Chica’s empty eye sockets staring directly into the camera and jumps back with a gasp. The tiny pinpricks of LED light seem to shimmer with amusement as he rolls his eyes toward the ceiling and wills himself to breathe deeply.

With a clap of static and radio feedback, the screen goes blank again.

 _The Mangle_.

He scrambles for the filthy Freddy head and grabs it from under the cracked leather seat, setting it in his lap and clinging to it as an incoherent mantra of _calm down calm down you can do this just calm down_ whirls in his mind. The flashlight buzzes defiantly when he aims it through the door, and as he bangs it against the butt of his palm there’s a deafening _thud_ in the vent on his right and _oh God please no_ he stops breathing and Chica lights up like a hideout yellow Christmas tree _right in front of him_.

Flicking the light on and off, he slips his fingers under the edge of the enormous animatronic head and tugs it closer as inconspicuously as he can. She must be stunned, she _has_ to be stunned or he’s dead and the metal of the vent clangs and echoes as the thing in it draws closer and the flashlight tumbles off of his lap and hits the tile floor with a sickening crack as he fumbles the hollowed-out head over his shoulders and holds his breath as the putrid stench of the sweat and rust envelops him.

 _Please_.

 _Please, please, oh God_.

Something scrapes over the floor a few feet away on the right and his blood runs cold as the Mangle watches him carefully. He holds still, as still as he’s ever been in his life, and she gives a shrill scrape of claws and thuds back through the vent.

His eyes stretch wide as blackness begins to speckle his vision and he carefully, softly lets out a tiny breath. The head is digging painfully into his shoulders and he can feel it shifting, and (no no _no_ ) it’s trying to fall off and _oh God_ the flashlight is there on the floor, halfway to the hall and the sound it made echoes through his head (did the bulb break? God, no, _please_ no) and suddenly everything stops.

There’s a vacuum where Chica was.

Something’s wrong.

It goes on for five or six seconds before he realizes he’s even hearing anything. The silence is swallowed up by the cold that breaks out all over him; his body knows before his brain does _that music I forgot the music box holy shit it’s moving so fast_

The maddening tune grows louder and faster until it’s surrounding him, deafening, loud _so loud_

It stops.

He realizes he’s breathing again. Rasping. Faint, noiseless sobs are filling him up and slicing through the cold, still dark.

The head is torn off in a scream of sound and crashes off into the hall but he barely hears it because it’s above him, perfectly still, staring into him with its empty eyes.

It raises a thin, impossibly long arm, extending its three needlelike claws.

They hover over his neck and its head tilts to the side as it watches him.

“I-I’m so -- I forgot to -- oh God I’m s-so sorry,” he breathes.

It looks at him, its sentience creeping and palpable in the deathly quiet. Its fingers gleam brilliantly in the dull light.

With a creaky, rusty sound, its head droops minutely forward to aim toward his rapidly fluttering chest. It moves its endless arms and presses its fingers against his sternum, the tips so sharp that he barely feels them grazing his flesh. He sobs softly and stares up at the mask, and he feels a strange rushing in his head and realizes it’s dragging its claws downward, tiny droplets of blood springing to the surface as it effortlessly slices through his shirt.

As he squeezes his eyes shut and a swell of nausea begins to rise through his terror, it freezes.

He’s not aware of what’s happening until he opens his eyes and lets out a pleading whimper and realizes it’s almost _coiled_ , its consciousness somehow startled.

It’s looking at his lap.

For the first time in his life, having an unbidden erection is the _least_ of his problems.

Until it makes a low sound somewhere between metal scraping on metal and the trill of a dove and leans closer.

It gazes up at him quizzically, eyes flickering thoughtfully.

No no no no _no_

The thing’s head cocks to the side with a curious, creaking sound. Its needle-sharp fingers skirt down his side, leaving minute cuts in the fabric of his shirt. The feather-light touch down his torso is just enough to hurt and he turns his head away, moaning with terror as the fabric protecting him is sliced and flutters away in thick, useless strips.

Its hands press down on him with more weight as its body bonelessly drifts up over his legs. He hears himself keen hysterically over the crashing of his heartbeat as its thick, cognizant presence rests over him and it creaks softly again and he’s suddenly staring at it, a fresh wave of terror rushing up through him as it gazes down at his bare skin with soulless eyes and begins to move itself

 _No_.

Freezing-cold fabric hits his erection and he cries out in the fear that it’s going to crush him, decapitate him until there’s nothing but rhythmically pumping blood streaming in a fountain out from between his legs  and then suddenly somehow it’s giving way and

the fabric is receding around

_how can it be hollow how why would it be_

(WHY WOULD IT NEED LUBRICATED IT’S FABRIC IT DOESN’T NEED OIL)

 

The thing presses down on him, its hollow, flexible insides stretching around his cock with a fiery cold that’s pulsating with life and something sweet and sinfully wet and he’s reeling, adrenaline screaming white-hot through his mind as the absolute concrete belief that he’s going to die is interrupted by sensation that’s so fucking unbelievably _good_ that he’s very, very close to fainting.

His eyes flutter open and he looks into the thing’s face, whining disbelievingly as he watches its skinny body sliding down to take him in entirely. He’s so scared and turned on it hurts, and he moans harshly and throws his head back, causing it to let out another noise, this one akin to a hollow purr. He feels its mask close, hovering over his neck as it watches the sweat bead and trickle over his skin. It squeezes on him in a long, luxurious movement, and he cries out and almost comes right there because this is the most terrifying and sexy thing that has ever happened to him or anyone _ever_.

“I … you’re … p-please. _Mmmph_.”

It chirps quizzically at his useless words and its long fingers dance over the exposed parts of his legs for a breathless moment. It then pushes down further and he screams and jerks into its lithe body.

Startled, the puppet is still for a long moment (as its insides flex and pulse painfully on his cock) before it gives a soft, airless sigh and lifts itself up and eases back down.

( _Jesus fucking Christ this isn’t happening_ )

Its silky fabric legs come to rest on his skin once more as it sucks him into it. He’s shaking, not sure when that started, and he’s staring, unseeing, at the cobwebby ceiling as the sinfully sweet tightness causes his sanity to trickle away second by second. It’s still again, and it listens to him groan and sob and beg with meaningless syllables for a while before beginning to move again, faster.

He cries out hoarsely and digs his fingers into the arms of the chair. Its empty, brilliant eyes are hot on his face as he grinds desperately up into it, and it lets out a tinny, chiming noise that almost sounds like laughter. One of its hands comes to rest on his collarbone, pressing down with its impossible strength and allowing it to pull off of him more before meeting his hips with force like a thunderclap. It distantly registers a moment later that he’s moving more than the puppet is, its black, boneless silhouette stilling in place and allowing him to rock up into it as it constricts to a dizzying tightness and dribbles fluid hot from friction onto his excruciatingly sensitive flesh.

Sobbing deliriously, he grasps for its hands, gripping its razor-sharp fingers and pressing the hand on his chest into him until its claws dig deep into the skin. It begins to concede to his wordless pleas and meets his thrusts suddenly and with an unearthly screech that echoes down the hall and makes his ears ring.

He has never wanted anything as badly as this.

Its hollow eyes burn into him and it is deathly silent as he screams and comes hard into its unforgivingly snug body, rutting up against the puppet until it hurts and he’s spent and aching in his balls and his chest and in the small of his back.

He falls spinelessly against the disgusting chair, choking on air that rakes down his dry throat as tears stream from his eyes.

The ghostly thing leans to hover over him, watching him for a long while as the slick cools in his hair and under his clothing, becoming horrid and cold. He’s nearly unconscious when it presses its icy-cold mask against his neck and lets out a guttural trill.

He awakens at 5:59 AM, filthy and aching and inexplicably alive, and stumbles from the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF YOU READ THIS, SCOTT, I AM SO, SO SORRY.


	5. Take-Apart

She grips her mother's sleeve, tugging her down to the heap of metal on the floor.

 

"Don't you think he likes being in one peace, sweetheart?"

 

"She's a _she_ , Mommy!" The brunette bounces anxiously in place before turning to grab a cartoonish hand. "Here, where does this one go? _Mommy_. Where does this one go?"

 

The woman turns to face her husband, leaning against the opposite wall. "S-A-V-E M-E," she spells over the chatter of a dozen kids, ignoring her daughter's displeased glance. The little girl can't decipher the meanings of the letters, but she's learning to resent the covert form of information sharing. The young man laughs, not moving from his position. His adoration of the pair is evident in his grin.

 

“Mommy.” The chubby-cheeked girl bounces once in place, brows drawing together as she grips the painted metal hand. “Help me put her back together! Let’s put this arm here.”

 

“Honey, I don’t know how to put a big metal robot together. Don’t you want to go watch Emily and Rickey play ice hockey?”

 

“ _Mommy_.” She begins to tap the wrist joint of the hand against various parts of the tangle of metal, her displeasure palpable when it refuses to magically attach. The mangled animatronic stares past them with scratched, bleary eyes.

 

With a defeated sign, the woman kneels down and takes the part held out to her.


End file.
